Subaltern realism is a theory first proposed in the 1980s and further developed in the 1990s by Professor Mohammed Ayoob, a scholar of international relations. The theory is a critical rejoinder to the neorealism of Kenneth Waltz and others, including the domestic analogies that neorealism employs. It aims to provide an analytical tool for grasping the major determinants of Third World state behavior, the dominant concerns of Third World state elites, and the root causes of conflict in the Third World. The theory emphasizes the divergence of Third World conditions from those of industrialized core states, and has gone on to criticize mainstream International Relations theory for excluding the Third World. It proposes an alternative conceptualization of security and emphasizes the inequality in IR theorizing.
